


The Lovers' Club

by judisno



Series: Our Love is Gd [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bi-Curiosity, Depression, Detox, Dissociation, Divorce, Drug Addiction, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fix-It, Homelessness, Implied Sexual Content, Injury Recovery, Jewish Identity, Mental Health Issues, Moving In Together, Multi, Panic Attacks, Polyamorous Losers Club (IT), Pre-Poly, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:42:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23638984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judisno/pseuds/judisno
Summary: The Losers (correction:Lovers) are an organized mess.Starts with Stan living in a rental car and Audra walking out on Bill, ends with the whole gang living together in LA.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough & Audra Phillips, Eddie Kaspbrak & Myra Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris & Stanley Uris, The Losers Club & The Losers Club (IT), The Losers Club/The Losers Club (IT)
Series: Our Love is Gd [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1749472
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	1. Lovers Born Inside the Monster

**Author's Note:**

> Another "And then what?" kinda fic, resulting from notes and headcanons I've been thinking up and posting elsewhere for months, only now it's been organized and expanded into paragraphs.
> 
> When I first thought of them texting each other, I was SUPER into "If I Can't Have You" by Shawn Mendes. So that's a listening suggestion if you're up for it.

Eddie lives. It’s a rocky return, but it’s a return. Once he’s properly moved in with Richie, Stan doesn’t want to disturb them. They’ve just gotten around to accepting that they belong together. Bev & Ben are busy planning a wedding. Mike’s alone on the road, but seems happy that way for now. He doesn’t want to insert himself into any of their living spaces and ends up staying in his car for a while after leaving Patty; but holding late-night text conversations with Bill can’t hurt, right?

Bill’s married too, he remembers, and doesn’t need the added stress of a friend moving in, but knows he’s the kind of person who would insistently offer if he knew of said friend’s own housing situation, so Stan keeps it unmentioned and then vague for as long as he can. He feels the least deserving. He had a good life. He had a good wife. Then he refused to be confined, to not have control over what he consumes and what he wears, and to not be allowed to leave somewhere freely whenever he pleases when she insisted it be a longer stay or to never come home. He chose this over that eventual return to goodness. It’s too late to turn back. He’s been sleeping in a rental car.

Mike is travelling, finally getting out there, and no one wants to slow him down. Mike is the only one who thinks for certain he isn’t supposed to end up dating another one of the Losers. No one wants to tag along and get in the way of him finding love elsewhere. That doesn’t mean he isn’t talking to them anymore. In fact, he sends them all a ridiculous amount of pictures & videos the first week.

Bill’s back at home and can’t explain the urgency of “just going to visit some old friends” satisfyingly enough. screwing up _ movie production _ for it which turns out to have had some pretty expensive consequences after finding out he has to go somewhere and that “it’s urgent” and “no, you can’t come with me” and not being able to explain all of that, and they get into a really bad argument over it that first night back and the idea of her _ not being the woman she’s supposed to be _ comes back up somehow, from her and out of pure insecurity. She thinks maybe he just ran off because he’s cheating or secretly has a whole family elsewhere even though he won’t re-open discussion about having kids with her, or something like that. they don’t really conclude it; not until they go to bed angry. Neither can sleep, but she isn’t watching him, won’t face him, not for hours. she finally turns to try to smooth things over, expecting to have to gently wake him and for it to be peaceful once more ever after, she instead gets even more pissed off. Because he’s _ awake _ and _ smiling at his phone. _ He's been having a text conversation with Stan for the past couple hours.

She’s right back to wondering if her husband is even into women at all.

She gives him an option, the same one, one more time: the whole, entire truth, no matter how crazy, or she leaves. and so he _ tries, _ and she decides early into the story that it sounds too made up, that clearly he’s concocting some bullshit to mess with her, and starts packing.

She's out of the house by 4a.m., and smacks him in the chest with a garbage bag full of clothes and says, “don’t help me, I’m mad at you!” when he tries to carry some stuff out to the car for her. He doesn’t get an answer when he asks where she’s even going to stay.

He sends another text: _ Can I call you? _

During the call, the cat pounces out of the bag and scratches up Stan’s face. He doesn’t want to verbally lie to Bill. He didn’t really want to lie over text. It was just a whole lot easier to avoid topics and make shit up that way, almost like they were playing a game - which he realizes sounds fucking awful when admitted in person. Bill, knowing how bad of a response it sounds to say that he’s more disappointed than mad, instead tells Stan he’ll text an address and then hangs up.

Supposing Bill was just too tired to start anything, he has a difficult time focusing enough to start the journey. It’s starting to get light out and neither of them have gotten any sleep. When he can manage to quit spacing out for a solid minute, he makes his way to the nearest gas station, gets an energy drink he knows will taste disgusting while paying inside, and then picks music he doesn’t actually think sounds good but knows won’t be too boring to stay awake with. He avoids looking at himself in any of the car’s mirrors. The younger man at the counter had tactlessly commented on his unruly appearance and, while he hadn’t seemed to care in the slightest when it happened, it had somewhat bothered him. He knows he looks exhausted. He knows he looks like he’s been crying. “Oh, yikes, you look rough, man.” No comment. _ What’s it to ya, asshole? _ He knows he would’ve thought the same about someone like him at that age, but he wouldn’t _ say _ it!

A truck stops abruptly in front of him, wheels producing a harsh noise, and it makes him realize he’s just been doing what the phone navigation tells him, not even really looking at his surroundings. He pulls over, smacks his own face a few times, pops open the can, guzzles down about half of it, and sets it down in a cup holder before getting back into a lane, face scrunched. _ “Guh, _ fuck.” Traffic has picked up, people on their ways to work.

When he arrives at the house, he’s surprised (and feeling a little guilty, too) to see Bill has fallen asleep in a position that can’t possibly be comfortable in his own front steps. Stan takes a seat next to him, pressing the button to lock the car, and cringes at its beep, which startles Bill upright.  
“Sorry. I forgot how loud it is.”

Bill looks at Stan for a moment like he’s seeing a ghost, unsure he’s really there. It hurts, but Stan gets it. He doesn’t feel like he’s been all that real lately either. Then they stand and hug and go inside. Bill says he can use the bed and insists on taking the couch. They both get up again around dinner time and just order pizza because neither of them feel like cooking.

There’s an old made-for-TV horror movie on that’s not scary in his own opinion, but Bill changes the channel anyway after seeing Stan jump back a little from the cheap-looking set of big pointy teeth that fly toward the camera. They don’t talk about it. They don’t say much until Mike calls. It’s a video call. Stan can see that and he tries not to look as nervous as he feels. Bill peers over at him and, before answering it, says, “We have to tell the others.”


	2. Eddie Kaspbrak Has a Nervous Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie gets some help and so does Richie, but it doesn't solve everything.

Eddie doesn’t know what to do. He thinks he’s supposed to be happy, but isn’t, and that feels like a failure somehow. He can’t say he’s sad he lived, not with how Richie’s looking at him, so he doesn’t say anything for a while. When he has to, he says just enough to convince people to leave him alone and stop worrying about him. It doesn’t work on Richie, but he doesn’t know that because Richie is trying not to be annoying. As soon as he gets to be seated upright and alone with Richie at the same time, he uses his remaining hand to grab shirt collar and nab a kiss. Richie had been stumbling through what Eddie quickly realized was a love confession but one that was starting to fizzle out with self-doubt and embarrassment and he was having absolutely none of that. It doesn’t mean he’s happy. He hasn’t associated love with happiness in a very long time; possible ever, now that he thinks about it, and that’s a sad thought, so he tries to re-focus on what Richie is saying afterward. The tears are of joy now. He lets out a hollow little laugh, trying to sound like he feels something. It’s as if, at this time, love isn’t a feeling but a known fact. He knows he feels the same, but the feeling is disconnected from the rest of him right now.

Then the door opens again, breaking a short awkward silence that had followed the laugh, and he’s told that he can leave today and that his wife is waiting for him outside. She isn’t even going to come up to the room. She’s just outside. He’s looking straight at the messenger as they say someone will bring his things to the room and he’ll be signed out within the hour, then closes the door. Richie can tell this is not actually good news for Eddie, who’s gone back to quietly staring off into nothing, and tries to think fast, find a solution, make it all okay because clearly neither of them want them to be separated again, clearly that woman wasn’t good for him, clearly he doesn’t want to go outside and get in the car with her, so, “You could move in with me instead.”

Next thing Eddie knows he’s still in hospital garb, but it’s a shirt and pants this time, and he’s in a different part of the building and Richie is nowhere to be seen.  
Richie didn’t think this through. He’d gotten a vacant-sounding, “Okay, sure,” and when Eddie’s (now clean) outfit from when he’d been checked in had been set on a small table near the door, Eddie had reached out and said he thought he should stay longer for mental reasons and didn’t want to see the woman outside; that, in fact, he was planning on leaving her. She’d gotten impatient and gone in and heard this from just behind that nurse peeking in from the hall. She’d gotten very upset about it. She’d barged into the room, completely ignored Richie, started yelling and even gotten pushy with Eddie, and assumed it was because he was interested in another woman when he said he was going to stay with a friend for a while. She’d been escorted out by Security.

Now Richie is back in the waiting room trying to decide what to do next because, let's be real, he doesn’t want Eddie or _ any _ of the others to see what his house looks like as it was left before their return to Derry. It’s a disaster and a half, he thinks, and he realizes it’s been about a week and a half. At the very least, if Eddie doesn’t change his mind, he has to call someone to clean the place. That could take a while. It could even be compromised if he chooses the wrong contact. There’s no way to be sure anyone in his phone list won’t either use up what he’s left, invite other people over to do so, or report it to the police, all three having potential to invite unwanted media attention. He has to take a chance on someone though.

He chooses the same person who dealt what needs to be removed and feels like shit for it. He sends some money through an app to have the guy hire someone else to do normal house cleaning afterward. The guy doesn’t like the suggestion that they end all interaction at that point, but agrees not to pester him anymore with a few extra hundred added on. Richie returns to standing within hearing distance of Bev and, tucking his phone away, complains of a headache. He then accepts a couple little pills she had pocketed without a single thought.

“You should be utilizing that water jug over there, man. What have you even had to drink since… since the restaurant? No, that can’t be right. Surely you had, like, coffee or something after that, before the fight, right?” Ben is trying to remember if and what he’s seen any of them consume since they were all at that table together, happy, forgetting the monstrous lives they grew into and remembering mostly the highlights at first of the lives they were born into. He can’t. It all feels like it happened so fast suddenly and only the big details are crystal clear.

Bev sighs. “Get up, Rich. Grab yourself a cup, fill it, I’m not doing it for you.”

So he does. He realizes that it’s most likely withdrawal. He’d kept only a small amount for the first night in a bed in Derry and been out of it since then, but smoking whenever given the opportunity. That wasn’t something he’d done in quite some time and he liked it less, but figured it’d have to do. It’s not like he could tell his friends and the one he loves that he turned out to be a genuine druggie and shatter their image of the mildly cynical class clown that first day back and as the days went on, it both felt more suffocating to do nothing and more wrong to think about telling.

When the rest of them leave the hospital, done chatting about Eddie and Myra and the security guards and where they’ll spend the night before leaving town again, Richie stays, waits a minute, watching them leave before going up to the front desk to speak. He decides not to tell anyone he’s going to detox so he isn’t completely miserable or dead by the time Eddie is supposed to be checking out a second time and leaving with him.

All of this means that no one knows where Richie is right now, when Bill answers Mike’s video call. “Hey, good morning!”

Mike responds excitedly to the half-hearted greeting, assuming it’s just because it’s morning so Bill is just waking up. “Good morning to you! I just wanted to let you know I’m in your neighborhood right now. Told you I was gonna see where all o’ y’all lived!”

Bill flickers a smile, something empty, the kind someone gives when they drive by someone and do it right quick just to be polite because that person smiled at them even if the two are complete strangers, and says, “Okay, I’ll text you the address if you wanna come over. You won’t believe who’s here though.”

Mike, knowing full well he can’t see around Bill by looking around the room he’s in through a screen but doing it anyway because he thinks _ someone _ needs a little humor today, asks, “Who’s that?”

This earns him an eyeroll. Then, Bill turns the screen over to face Stan. He can’t see it, but he laughs at the little gasp he hears.

When they can visit, they choose to lie and say Richie is just preparing things for them back home because they figure that’ll be less stressful for Eddie to hear than that they have no fucking clue where he went and they’re worried about it enough themselves. Bev picks up on him covering the scarred cheek with his hand once talking, pulls it down gently to hold on the table, saying, “you don’t need to do that,” but doesn’t bring it up again after, instructed not to touch the patient.

When _ Richie _ can visit, he seems like a whole new person, too optimistic, like he’s forcing the vision of the future to cover up something past or current, but then Eddie thinks this has to be an irrational thought, that if it were something important then Richie would just say it and if it weren’t it didn’t matter and it could also just be a feeling that means nothing. On the second day he’s told he can leave, when the agreed upon amount of time is up and he’s scheduled a first appointment with someone to talk to much closer to where he’ll be going next and he has a short-term prescription for an anxiety medication, Richie is unusually quiet yet keeps up a smile, at least whenever Eddie is looking.

He thinks it’s a little odd that Richie told him to wait a minute before going inside - “I just need to check on something, I’ll be right back out, I promise” - but Richie’s always been a little odd. _ It’s probably nothing. Maybe he has a pet. Maybe he smokes weed. That’d make sense. _ He smirks to himself at the idea of Richie coming up with comedy bits while high on the least dangerous thing readily available to him. He’s startled out of that little daydream by Richie opening the passenger door for him, bowing; “After you, my love!” _ Yeah. Nothing’s wrong. That’s my Richie. _ He steps out of the car, finally looking up at the tall house. It’s three levels and has wide windows that see right into most of the house. He thinks back to wondering what Richie might’ve been trying to hide and his tension leaves, amending that if he really wanted to know, he probably could’ve just looked up from the car’s own window. He decides to drop it.

It’s officially okay that he over-packed.

Because he'd had to, Eddie made up some things, because he both knew the people working in the hospital wouldn’t believe the full true story and didn't want to get any of his friends in trouble for murder, just said he was attacked by a stranger at random while visiting them, pretended he didn’t know Bowers, that it wasn’t a childhood bully haunting his mind like he did when they were kids all over again, like he wasn’t having nightmares about a person he _ knew. _ These hadn't cleared up by the time he left, but he didn't want to have to bicker with whoever was in charge of his insurance any more, so he kept that fact quiet.

Back in the hospital, after Eddie was moved to another room, Myra had chosen to think that, yes, he was just being crazy, and this would all be water under the bridge when he got over it. So she called when he was allowed his phone and she saw that it was turned on from the account that was still being automatically paid for which she had access to on their home computer until one day, he thought about saying he’s not _ going _ to be back to her incessant asking when he’s coming home, and then does say it, and regrets it instantly, not having meant to say it but just blurting it out in unbearable frustration, and then unable to handle the thought of how she might answer it and so hanging up quickly, getting worked up again because he can’t take it back, he can’t take back that he said it & hung up, so now he _ really _ can’t go back to her, can’t go back for the rest of his stuff, it’s _ over. _ He has to - scratch that - _ gets _ to start over, gets to take the chance. After so long feeling like a doormat and not really his own person, he deserves this. He knows he won’t be alone, doesn’t doubt that Richie was serious about him moving in one bit, it’s just the newness that’s making him feel sick. He only notices the other person in front of him who was helping him calm down when the panic is over and they’re walking away with the phone. “There, there. That’s enough for today.”

Now Eddie is in Richie’s kitchen, imagining getting used to his same old job in a different state, them both getting better at communication and developing patterns like taking turns cooking breakfast, & it being just as busy if not more, but hotter outside. Maybe he tans nicely. (Maybe he stays inside too much and over-uses sunblock. Maybe he over-thinks about the natural freckles he gets literally _ every _ summer that disappear completely over the winter to the point of tears.) Maybe he looks okay in certain swimwear that cover the back and chest scarring. Maybe he becomes a pro at doing makeup in the way that looks like there isn't any.

They almost buy a second bed after looking at some online. Almost. They put it off because they’re exhausted, go one night just sleeping in the same bed, and decide to keep it that way instead of going bed shopping in the morning like they’d talked about because they liked cuddling too much. He doesn't remember any dream, good or bad, upon waking, and hopes it stays peaceful like that not for his own well-being but because he doesn't want to wake Richie up with kicks or an accidental punch.

Putting on that hope like both a badge and a mask, he teases, “Your bed is stupid big anyway.”


	3. An Easier, Softer Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so. Much. BUILDUP.

Richie tried writing about his own life for comedy purposes a long time ago and found his notebook scrawlings to sound more like the kind of stuff you’d tell a therapist than an audience you want to laugh at it and maybe relate. He didn’t want anyone to relate to what he wrote and it began to sound less funny in his head every time he read it again. But he needed the attention, needed to get out there and prove himself, so he found someone else to write for him and give him an easy-to-manage brand of vulgarity and shock humor. The things he can’t joke about stay in his head like pounding fists and when he has the money, they ram him right into things heaven and hell and between the two and off the grid. The things he can’t joke about aren’t talked about normally either because _ who wants to hear it? _ He can’t sound whiny, can’t seem too needy or clingy, he’s been too into a friendship or two before and mostly given up on romance. What he wants more than anything is someone to really open up to who won’t be scared off by the intensity of his feelings but he’s settling for less because it’s just easier to.

This way, he can let out some steam being explosive for comedic reasons so he doesn’t snap at anyone at the wrong time, he can let a little real anger slip out without the audience knowing, and be known for that & think it’s enough when pretending he’s never loved and just talking about fucking and other easy-to-joke-about things. Nothing is forcing him to confront the fact that he has and hasn’t been the same since, that he couldn’t admit those feelings existed before, can’t after a row of successful shows with increasing numbers, at his effort finally paying off.

Despite it being said that he never knows when to shut up, the opposite is true in a bedroom setting. The raunchiness elsewhere is a way to cope with the loneliness of being surrounded by people who don’t really know you and may never, and silliness an easy way to push away unwanted (read: too deep, raw) subjects, like what he’s really afraid of, which certainly isn’t clowns. It’s not like he would say _ no _ if asked, but not one is going to ask after they see him perform.

In a hospital entryway, as Eddie is being carried away from them, their friends have to physically hold Richie back from following. He gives up quickly only from exhaustion and when his arms fall back at his sides, they initiate a proper group hug. It’s the first time in years that he’s cried with so many people around. It’s then that he thinks he’s done following a script.

While convincing Eddie that he’s doing the right thing by deciding to continue going to an outside therapist after being released, Richie considers seeing one too, or at least looking into some sort of support group. _ Maybe just something online. That’d be fine. _ Eddie had agreed with the recommendations given at the hospital while they were there, but now, on the way to the first appointment, he’s suddenly having some trouble trusting the idea. Richie has plenty of experience talking to psych students in college. He only mentions the ones who clearly had the best of intentions and leaves out the fact that he only talked to them in search of drugs. Ironically, he had better luck with those attending for law.

“I’ll be right out here, my love, waiting for you!” He waves to Eddie when it’s time, slouching purposefully and eyeing the puzzle set next to a stack of magazines. Eddie relaxes a little at that, already looking forward to getting lunch after.

Mostly, Eddie talks about Richie, how they met in school and then moved away and lost contact but got back together with their old friends - details about the get-together copied and pasted directly from his memory of the decided upon script he chose to be believable in the hospital - and now they’re a fairly happy couple who live together.

He only talks more about the injuries themselves and how things have healed up when prompted. He’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt with one of the sleeves safety-pinned to the shoulder on the other side, draped like a scarf for fashion. “That was Richie’s idea. I think it looks kinda silly, but he said it was cute, so I left it.”

The man on the other side of the table in the middle of the room is almost 15 years older than him, but not a hint judgmental. He smiles and nods at this. Then a small timer on the table beeps.

“Oh, an hour flies by fast when you’re talking about someone you love, am I right?”

Eddie laughs, nodding back at him. They shake hands.

At a booth in a very simply aesthetically pleasing diner, Richie is distracted by his phone. He’s receiving details on both Stan and Patty from Bev, who got them from Bill but not before Mike did, and Eddie has to get his attention by (after looking around and seeing that, just a minute later, yes, they’re still almost totally alone and the only other customer won’t be able to see it from where they’re sitting) playing footsie. Somehow Richie is invested enough that a foot has to be dragged _ past the knees _ before he startles into better posture. “Woah, hey there!”

Eddie just scoffs at him. “I tried talking to you at a publicly acceptable volume. I tried waving. What’s so interesting, _ huh?” _

“Are you prepared to receive news that may -”

Eddie glares at him and he drops the voice and slides the device across the table. Before he can look down, Richie speaks seriously, “Stan’s not dead. Patty’s making excuses for telling us he died. Bev’s mad about it. He lives with Bill now. Bill is probably getting divorced soon. That’s the short of it,” and then he has to take a look for himself and think all the texts in her voice. It makes him miss her, mixing the shock of this new information with fondness and wondering when they’ll meet again.

Back at home, Eddie still hasn’t gotten anything he’s _ very politely requested _ of his in the mail yet from New York. He needs to use a computer, that being the most convenient way to find jobs these days, and is starting to think he may never get the personal laptop he had back. He doesn’t want to go out again today to look for a new one though, not trusting anything that can be ordered online, wanting to make sure there’s nothing wrong with one in person before buying it, so he asks Richie if he minds him using the one already there in the bedroom. He expects it to be fine, and it is! Richie is thinking about dinner already, previously not used to planning meals that far ahead in the day but knowing they’re not going anywhere else later, knowing Eddie’s food preferences much better now, and having decided he wants to put together something really special for tonight. Before, he would’ve waited until he got hungry to decide what to eat and certainly wasn’t as picky or considerate in his choices. The _ I think I’m gonna have to get a new laptop but I don’t want to go shopping or anything for the rest of today, can I just use yours right now? _ only initially registered to him as a prompt to start cutting up some vegetables, something he went “mhm, yep, sure” at before getting right to it. He doesn’t think about any of the things he has saved on it until Eddie leaves the kitchen.

He tries using the repetitive task of slicing and dicing and simplicity of putting ingredients away in nice little containers in the fridge to keep himself calm and it’s especially unhelpful when he remembers he never logs out of his email account and has desktop notifications on for it. He still hasn’t blocked some people he means to get around to erasing from his life now that he’s back and has all intentions for being better in every way. He has to stop and go watch TV when he’s reminded of something else being cut into neat thin lines and can’t stop imagining the sight.

Eddie finds him spacing out and snaps him out of it by taking a seat next to him and then flopping over, head on lap, hand on knee. He looks up, they meet gazes. “Hey. You’ve been weird today. I mean, weirder than normal. Is there something you wanna tell me?”

Richie would swallow if his mouth weren’t already so dry. “Listen, whatever you saw… It’s old. I’m getting rid of it. Please don’t worry about it.”

Eddie looks confused. He wasn’t talking about anything on the computer. He wondered what ** ca4la.org ** in the bookmarks bar was, but didn’t open anything on it. That was the most recent thing, the last on the far right, and everything else there just an icon with no title saved.

The gate box buzzes. Eddie stands quickly and Richie practically runs toward it.

It’s Bev and Ben. He presses the button to let them drive in. Walking out to greet them, he sees another car behind theirs. It’s Mike driving, Bill next to him, and Stan seated in the back.

“Well shit, if I’d known we were all having a party tonight, I…” he quiets down, “actually, nah, we have plenty of food, I just thought I was only cooking for two. Feel free to have something delivered.”

“Ha! You, cooking? I gotta see it for myself,” is how Mike greets him. “Relax, we brought pizza.”

He looks over and breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of Bill stepping out with three boxes.

After they’ve all caught up as much as each is comfortable with, Bev stands, looking around at them all with determination visible on her face. “Okay, guys. I have an idea.”

Ben appears to already know what it is, trying to look supportive by moving to sit closer to her on a couch arm.

“I think the seven of us are meant to stay together.”


	4. How to Love a Loser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> friends who rip bread together... are probably at least the friend type of soulmates lmao

On a large, flat-screen TV, a bearded, elderly man is speaking, "It's not normal for a killer to stop for 27 years, is it?"

Richie finds humor in the irony, but Eddie is chilled by it. Bev enters the room from a hallway. 

“Is that the news?”

“No, it’s Criminal Minds,” Richie tells her, pressing the down arrow on the remote to show that it’s season 3, episode 11 without pausing it.

After that line, Ben had looked away. Now he’s seemingly forgotten about it, invested in the bread he’s trying to braid that’s too sticky and keeps getting accidentally smoothed where there’s supposed to be an obvious strand. Almost all of the kitchen is visible from the next room, a totally unnecessary long archway between the two different types of flooring just blocking the fridge and a storage closet. _ It would be one thing if it had an interesting design, _ Richie had told them when he was giving everyone a tour, _ but it doesn’t. _ Stan had countered that it isn’t nearly as weird as _ his _ house, and then a beat later everyone could see the realization dawning on his face that he could no longer call it his.

Last night, they all had a very serious talk. Richie and Stan shared the same opinion of the idea, but for wildly different reasons, and only Stan was willing to share his when asked to.

“What do you even mean by it, Bev? Like, the rest of us shouldn’t try to find someone new at some point because you two couples are happy together? You think the rest of us are just doomed to die single, is that it?”

“That’s not what I was saying at all.”

This early in, Richie had decided it was time to intervene and get everyone to find a comfy place to sleep. “Hey now, hey now, this is not what dreams are made of.”

A few of them looked confused. A wee whistle of a laugh squeezed out of Eddie’s lips.

“I have a guest room and one of these couches unfolds. I don’t think I have extra pillows or another blanket for that, but I can check the basement.”

“I have a sleeping bag in the car with a built-in pillow,” Mike offered.

“And both of the beds are huge, so there’s definitely space for more than two people,” Eddie had finished the informing bit.

No one asked Mike for the privacy of his sleeping bag. They all assumed it wasn’t negotiable. Richie & Eddie together, Ben & Bev together, Mike in the bag but on top of the unrolled couch because it was a bit rigid but still better than the floor, and then for Bill and Stan there were two options: either crash next to Mike without a blanket or ask to join; or, Stan thought, he could just go back out to a car. He’d have to be sneaky about it if he did, though, as Bill, after the initial excitement of seeing his dear friend again wore off, had yelled at him and pulled up a saved bookmark on his home computer he used as a writing reference for ways a spine can be injured, the second longest part being about sleeping in places one shouldn’t. The first was about car accidents with being tired listed as a common cause.

Stan chose not to push his luck, staring out a large window at the cars for a minute before turning around and seeing Mike already in position, just waiting for whoever else is going to to leave the room to close his eyes.

Richie’s first reaction to the idea, after Bev had explained that she did in fact mean as housemates, had been, “Woah, no rush! I mean, I was thinking of moving. I’d want to get somewhere not necessarily bigger, but with more rooms that look like they could actually be bedrooms, y’know? And this place is, like, stuffed full of bad memories too. I need time to look for somewhere else. It could take months! I was gonna wait, but,” he looked over at Eddie, “Eddie, my love, do you wanna go house shopping with me?”

Of course Eddie said yes, only thinking about that one question and forgetting about Bev’s while he kissed Richie. Then his face scrunched up again, nose twitching once. “Shouldn’t we all be looking at houses together if we’re doing that? If Stan isn’t interested, the least we can do is help him find somewhere else.”

“Wow! Talking about me like I’m not here, it’s just like before!” was the last thing he said before walking over to the window. He could hear Eddie say, _ Shit, I’m sorry, that came out wrong, _ but he didn’t care enough to respond. He figured if any of them cared enough to, they’d have followed him over there and tried to convince him to sit back down. They hadn’t. The conversation quieted down considerably.

When he calmed down enough to face the room again, he noticed only Mike. Fighting tears, he walked back to the steps to the entryway and found Richie sitting on them near the middle. He stood slowly, then smiled at Stan. “Hey,” he approached, a hand planting itself gently on one arm, “I said I’d talk to you. Can we talk?”

Richie led him to the basement so they wouldn’t disturb anyone when he heard a scratching throat sound from Stan, who clearly needed to let some feelings out. “Here, I have a soundproofed room if you wanna yell. I have some of those rocks that look dull on the outside but they’re pretty on the inside too, I bought ‘em to break in a sock. See?” He held up an instruction card, earning the next sound, something close to a snort but uglier. “I can also go away if it’s embarrassing to have me down here right now, just… promise to text me if you need something?”

Stan then managed to say, “You look like you want to go.”

“Only because Eddie’s waiting for me and he feels really bad that he upset you.”

“Maybe he should be the one talking to me then,” Stan argued bitterly.

“He asked me to have you join us.”

“He couldn’t have extended that offer to me personally?”

“It's _ my _ house!”

Stan turned and faced Richie again, done crying for the time being and feeling tired again. “I… I know, that makes sense, sorry,” he retreated, backing up into a corner and sliding to sit on the floor, “I was being an ass earlier, wasn’t I?”

“You were being insecure. You were the same when we were kids,” Richie reminded him, pulling a couple wooden chairs out of a darker part of the room, their only light still from the stairway above, “and I get it, I’m sure we all do in some way. You just have a tendency to keep that shit to yourself until you can’t anymore, right, ‘til it just bursts out?”

Stan nodded, getting up to sit on a chair but still not wanting to look directly at his friend.

“How’d that go over with Patty?”

“What?” He sounded out of breath.

“I mean, were you ever like this with her?”

“No. No, I wasn’t!”

“Okay.”

He realized Richie was just trying to be understanding of exactly what was wrong so he could figure out how to fix it and the turn to shouting had probably startled him. This didn’t help with the physical tension. He glanced over and noticed Richie was pulling at loose strands on an old sock he assumed had one of those special rocks in it.

“I didn’t mean to yell, it just came out like that. I think I need to drink some water or something,” Stan admitted, “then… I guess it wouldn’t hurt to sleep in a bed tonight.”

“Sounds like a plan, Stan the man!” Richie had _ beamed _ at him, leaving the rock sock under his chair and slinging one arm around him the very instant he stood.  
After some convincing, he slept in the middle, facing Eddie, both of them claiming a hand to hold. Richie fell asleep with his face against Stan’s back, Eddie’s against his chest.

Waking up to an alarm only because Eddie likes to have a consistent day schedule regardless of if they have anywhere to be that early in the morning or not, Richie noticed Stan had turned the other way in his sleep, almost face-down, and was apparently putting pressure on the underside his left arm on purpose, eyes squeezed shut.

Eddie took one look at Stan’s back to him, assumed he was still asleep, and went off to the kitchen, blowing a kiss their way. Richie put a hand up to catch it, then turned his focus back down, sing-song, “Stanny,” then serious, “what are you doing that for?”

“Do you know how bad I fucked it up, Rich? Did anyone tell you?”

“No,” he answered, taken aback by the anger he hears in the voice directed at its owner, “are ya gonna tell me?”

Stan laughed, brief, harsh, “Believe it or not, the pressure helps. I was told I should get a compression glove or a brace, I just kept forgetting and then I didn’t have the money and… I kinda felt like I didn’t deserve it anyway.”

“Well why the hell not!? No, don’t even think about answering that. Okay, listen, whatever reason you can come up with, I promise I can make a valid point against, but I’d really rather not. I’m gonna find you a nice one online today. You don’t even have to go anywhere, you can just wait for it. If it doesn’t fit right, the next move is up to you, but you’re at least gonna let me try, got it?”

Caught off guard by his tone, Stan just blinked at him, watching him sit up, put on his glasses, and start searching on his phone.

“Eddie’ll probably bring you something in an hour if you don’t get up to eat,” Richie added, eyes to the screen, “We _ are _ your friends and we _ do _ care about you and you don’t have to agree with it, just know that it hurts us when you say shit like that about yourself. You _ do _ deserve to be happy. If you really want to seek out a new romantic partner, be my guest, you’re not stuck here forever. What Bev said is true for a lot of different people though in a lot of different situations; if you’re _ not _ looking anymore, permanent housemates are a great idea. We’re all familiar... I know I didn’t sound totally into it last night, but honestly, it makes sense. Here, what do you think of this one?”

Stan saw the image and shrugged, “I don’t care what it looks like, Richie.”

Richie picked a simple long white compression glove and grinned at him, displaying the checkout page, “Your turn for Loser signatures!” He laughed quietly at the groan he heard exiting the room, closing the door behind him.

Now it’s nearing 2 P.M. and Stan still hasn’t left their bedroom. Eddie had knocked on the door and let him know what kind of breakfast food options were available in the kitchen, receiving a muffled acknowledgement, but hadn’t made an extra omelette.

Around noon, Ben had gathered the rest of them into the kitchen and insisted they do something to make Stan feel more welcome and the first thing Richie thought of was how he used to make those _ awful Jew jokes _ directed at Stan. This led to an announced recollection of once being offered “some sort of really tasty bread that I think was braided… do any of you know what I’m talking about?” and Bill confirming what it was called and how to make some for them in the next couple of minutes with a quick search. “Oh, perfect, today is a Friday!” Bev approved. She took the responsibility of gathering ingredients and Mike went with her because he wanted to check out the local shops.

This is why Ben is in the kitchen getting pissed off at uncooperative dough.

Stan leaves the bedroom at 2:31, trying not to immediately draw attention to himself, and fails epically thanks to an opened window causing the door to shut harder than he intended. It startles everyone including himself. “Sorry.”

“Hey, good to see you up, bud!” Ben says, not actually able to see him from his angle at the kitchen counter. “We wanted to do something special so I’m in here trying to make challah.”

Mike’s eyes go wide, instantly knowing Ben just said the name of the bread wrong. Stan just laughs at him, loud, continuous, a little wheezy. It makes everyone else start laughing, including Ben, who’s also apologizing between breaths after being corrected. Stan cracks up again for a moment when he gets a closer look at how it’s going.

“Dude… How did this happen? Why is it so sticky?”

“I think you can blame me for that,” Richie chimes in, “I kinda spaced out and gave ‘em an extra egg before they shoed me out of my own kitchen. I mean by legitimate shaking of a shoe, man. They were _ not _ having my presence in the way of the masterpiece.”

“That’s because your presence is chaotic and results in bad bread,” Bev says, elbow nudging him. “Wanna take guesses at what he had in mind for adding flavor?”

Stan shakes his head, stifling more laughter. It appears he’s been successfully cheered up. They give him shit for eating some uncooked dough before scooping the whole thing up and into the trash.

“Okay, let's start over.”


	5. Lovers Don't Settle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -George Orwell

“Hey Stan, don’t you wanna say anything special?” Bev says, trying to be encouraging.

They’re all at the table now, bread and garlic sauce and water jug and large bowl of fruit and single leftover slice of pizza set out perfectly in their places, plates new and bearing simple line designs that somehow made them look fancy, replacing some scratched and cracked ones Eddie had quickly found and complained about the first time he ate here. The ones that weren’t missing significant amounts of their original edges had been donated.

“They were hand-me-downs. It’s not like I paid for them,” Richie had excused it. When they went out for basic groceries later that day, he’d noticed Eddie reading a label for a set and bought it.

Stan has frozen, wide-eyed, like someone just asked _ him _ to get shirtless and bump bellies. Richie sees this and jumps in, “You don’t have to! No pressure, really, we just thought making this would help you feel included and it’s totally fine if you don’t want it to be like a _ family _ dinner or if it’s just weird to do regular prayers or other stuff like that around us. I get it. Religion can be a really personal, private thing. But if you don’t mind, I think we can all agree the bread was a good idea and we need to do it again next week.”

“Uh, actually, I do have something to say, but not like that.” Stan takes a sip from his cup, looks around to be sure they’re all paying attention, then continues less quietly, “I’ve had all of last night and today to think it over and I’ve decided to stay if you’ll all have me. I need to find work. I need to get back to living a life. I want to be happy at the end. I figure my chances are better with friends than alone. If that means never finding romantic love again, so be it.”

The conclusion, that he “felt pretty loved last night,” causes Eddie to blush and Richie to gaze adoringly. Bill, confused, asks what exactly he means by that.

Stan answers, “Richie convinced me to join him & Eddie. Where did you think I went? I wasn’t next to Mike this morning and I heard you get up and start talking out here!”

“Why didn’t you come out sooner?”

“Wanna ask that again?” says Stan, looking pointedly at Richie and Eddie.

Bev drops a napkin she’d just grabbed. “Oh my… you did _ not _ just say that.”

“I’m just curious. I mean, if Eddie forgot rebelling against his mother, it makes sense that he’d marry someone just like her, but Richie… you, I don’t get. It seems like you were happy here before our reunion, like you were doing well, so why’d you wait so long?”

Mike speaks up, “Hey now, that’s not fair. You were asked a question first, you don’t get to deflect with something so personal.” He looks mad, his tone like that or a scolding parent.

Richie sighs. “That’s the thing though. I wasn’t happy. I could put on a show of it, but I really wasn’t all that happy. In fact, I did some very stupid things because I wasn’t happy. I had plenty of days where I stayed in bed so long before I had Eddie. They aren’t far behind me, Stan.”

Bev leans in, elbows on the table, now also curious and a tinge concerned, “Wait, what kind of stupid things? What did you do, Richie?”

Mike is annoyed, but decides to let this play out uninterrupted.

“Um. Yeah, so, about that,” Richie glances nervously over at Eddie, “I think it’s time I tell you all why I wasn’t there for visitation early int-”

Eddie interrupts, “Rich, honey, we were all suffering then. You can leave it in the past if you don’t want to talk about it. What matters is that you’re happy & healthy _ now, _ okay?”

“And if he does want to talk, we should let him talk,” Mike suggests casually, getting up only to bring his own plate to the sink before sitting down, not looking directly at any of them.

Richie goes on, “I… had a drug problem.”

Now Eddie looks both angry and worried. “Excuse me!? _ Now _ I need to know what you were doing. Where the hell were you?”

“Detoxing.”

Eddie looks like he’s going to either cry or puke but is trying to make himself stay calm. “From what exactly? I know we all smoke sometimes, but… what else was there for you? Did you brink it to Derry?”

“Mostly coke, and I drank pretty heavy on weekends and at any parties I went to that let me. I’ve tried other things too though. I did bring a small amount to Derry and felt awful for it, Eds. The smokes barely helped.”

“I did think it was a little odd that I haven’t seen you smoke once since we got back.”

“I _ did _ smoke once after we got back here. Couldn’t sleep, went outside, showered and changed and brushed my teeth before I got back into bed that night. I know how you are and I don’t want you to worry about my health too, so I didn’t want you to smell it on me.”

“I wanted to ask where you went, I thought… I thought very irrational things, Richie, things I know you wouldn’t do. I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to sound paranoid.”

“I was ashamed, thought you’d be disgusted by that part of my past. I’m sorry.”

“And I’m sorry for asking,” Stan shoots out, looking amazedly at Richie.

“Don’t be,” Richie tells him, “it had to come out at some point.”

Unsure if the pun is intentional, they wait a moment and start laughing after he does.

After everyone’s done with what they want at the table and they start putting things away, Eddie pulls Richie to their room by the sleeve.

Privately, they return to the subject. Eddie first asks about the computer bookmarks. Mike is trying (and failing) to get the others to quit speculating openly about them in the living room.

“I thought about going to a meeting somewhere, but I didn’t want to explain where I was going.”

“I don’t know what I did to make you think I’d judge you for it.”

“You didn’t do anything. I just want to be good for you. I didn’t think it’d be fair to dump that baggage on you.”

“We all have baggage. I talked about mine when I was in the hospital. I told people about the bad dreams I had, how it felt to be stabbed in the face, the chest, what thinking I was going to die before I got to feel loved in a healthy way was like... We all need to let it out somehow. If I’d known you wanted to go somewhere too, I would have encouraged it. I wanted to know, but I wanted to _ trust you _ enough not to click on anything you had saved.”

Before Richie can come up with anything to say to that, Eddie kisses him. Outside the room, a thump against the door is heard. It causes them all to startle in their seats on the couches, the one that unfolds now folded back up. “What was that?” Bev wonders aloud.

“I don’t know,” Ben mumbles into a mug of tea from a box he’d found labelled _ Sleepy Bedtime Tea, _ chamomile. It’s only 6:50.

When the two exit the bedroom, they all shut up. Richie looks thoroughly roughed up, shirt wrinkled, pants zipped by not buttoned, and blushing darker and more encompassingly than Eddie had been earlier, the shade spread to the ears and neck.

“So I take it you two are good now,” Mike teases.

“Uh-huh,” Richie nods, a little out of breath.

Bev averts her gaze, trying not to seem amused by this. Ben is also looking away, not because it’s funny, but because he’s turned on by the realization of what just happened.

Bill and Stan are barely paying attention anymore, watching TV, but they smirk at each other for a second before shaking their heads, acknowledging it.

That night, Stan sleeps in the other bed and Bev is in the middle. She makes sure he gets up before 10 AM and brews coffee for the three of them. To his awe, she had wanted to be the big spoon for Ben and the little one for him. Ben had reached back and kept a hand on her thigh and Stan had draped his own wrist over that hand, unsure where else would be appropriate.

Bill had stayed by Mike, everyone in agreeance that Richie & Eddie needed a night alone together. He hadn’t had a blanket, but they were able to find an extra pillow and he used his own jacket as a blanket substitute. In the morning, he’d been found cuddled up to Mike’s sleeping bag with the jacket on the floor next to the couch and upon being woken up, quickly backed away. Mike was seemingly unaware.

Richie & Eddie are the last to rejoin them. A clear determination on their faces, Richie announces that they’re going to look at houses today.

“Stan, if you’re sure about staying, you should go too," Eddie heartens, eyes fixed on him after noticing he's standing the farthest away from anyone else in the room.

“Will I get my own bed?”

“Whoever wants their own bed gets one, yeah, that’s what we’re _ aiming _ for,” Richie tells him, stirring sugar into coffee.

“Okay then, I guess I’ll go.”

Secretly, he’s pleased by the implication that he might not be sleeping alone anytime soon.


End file.
